FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGYDale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.

Monday, 30 July 2012

Wikipedia includes this image of a brown owl with the red-eyed effect, which would be a good comparison for Mothman. Please remember that Mothman was ordinarily ony seen as a shadow with the red eyes.

Dale's personal favourite candidate to account for Mothman sightings would be an outsized individual Great grey owl: these are among the largest owls known, as large as some eagles. A really big one seen jumping up by an unsuspecting observer in the dark could look as large as a human being, or larger:

Why the big paws? Paranormal creature hunters claim to have found
Vietnam's Bigfoot

PUBLISHED: 10:19 EST, 12 July
2012 | UPDATED: 02:11 EST,
13 July 2012 A television programme dedicated to hunting
down supernatural phenomena believe they have found Vietnam's
Bigfoot.

Destination Truth, fronted by paranormal
researcher Josh Gates, travelled to the southeast Asian peninsular in search of
the legendary Batutut, a man-shaped cryptid never before seen by human
eyes.[This is of course an exaggeration: even saying "By American eyes" or "By Western eyes" is incorrect in that there ARE alleged witnesses who are informants-DD]

Using thermal imaging equipment Gates' team
trekked through the jungle in a bid to track down the fabled creature of the
night.

Scroll down
for video.

Thermal image: Destination Truth, fronted by paranormal
researcher Josh Gates, travelled to the southeast Asian peninsular in search of
the legendary Batutut, a man-shaped cryptid ever before seen by human
eyes

After some hours searching through forests and
caves the team stumbled across what appeared to a set of very big footprints
that they believed had to belong to Batutut himself. Further investigation uncovered a lifeform
through the undergrowth caught on their night-vision camera.

The evidence, however proved inconclusive and
the team went home without their prized Bigfoot.

The Batutut, also known as Ujit, is thought to
inhabit the Vu Quang nature reserve and other wilderness areas of Vietnam, Laos
and northern Borneo.

It is described as being approximately 6 feet
tall and covered with hair except in the knees, the soles of the feet, the
hands, and the face. [Approximately human sized up to 6 feet tall-DD]

The hair ranges in color from gray to brown to
black. The creature is said to walk on two legs and is most often sighted
foraging for food from fruits and leaves to langers and even flying
foxes.

A big foot? After some hours searching through forests and
caves the team stumbled across what appeared to a set of very big footprints
that they believed had to belong to Batutut himself

Bigfoot sighted: Further investigation uncovered a
lifeform through the undergrowth caught on their night-vision
camera

Get it: A frantic chase ensues as the team leap through
the jungle in a desperate bid to catch the elusive beast of the night

Destination truth: They run through the undergrowth to
find the Batutut

Out of sight: Despite searching even in the river, the
creature eventually gives the team the slip

Now it would seem that the use of the name Batut or Batutut would be a mistake since the name is actually in use on the island of Borneo. There was a prior usage of the name in that sense that I knew of, however, and it came from friend and co-CFZ-member Tabitca:

The Batutut , ape , bigfoot
or neanderthal?

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

There have been reported sightings of the Batutut ,sometimes
referred to as the Ujit or Sedapa , since 1918 in the wilds
of Vu Quang nature reserve Vietnam and Malaysia and Borneo.
It is described as very hairy, about 4 or 5 feet tall with
a protruding belly, thick shoulders and a leathery neck. The female
Batutut are said to have long pendulous breasts. They are bipedal
,walking upright with an awkward gait. Village people in BarisanMountains
in Sumatra tell of an encounter with a
Batutut. A hairy creature about 50 feet away stood and
gravely stared at the people and then nonchalantly walked away.
This was early in the twentieth century, and L. C. Westenek, a
governor of Sumatra, received a written report
about an encounter with the wildman. The overseer of
an estate in the BarisanMountains, along with some workers, observed
the Sedapa or wildman.. The overseer said he saw "a large creature, low on its
feet, which ran like a man, and was about to cross my path; it was very hairy
and it was not an orang-utan; but its face was not like an ordinary man's. It
silently and gravely gave the men a disagreeable stare and then ran calmly away"
(Sanderson 1961, pp. 216-217).There are even reports that people were able to
sit with a Batutut, offer the creature food and hear it murmur unintelligible
words.

In 1918, a hunter, Mr. Van Heerwarden, reportedly saw tracks
very similar to that of a bare footed human. He
searched the area but failed to find any people in the forest..
Several years later in 1923 he saw similar footprints.
He followed the prints and then spotted a wild man
in a tree: "I discovered a dark and hairy creature on a branch. ...
The sedapa was also hairy on the front of its body; the colour there was a
little lighter than on the back. The very dark hair on its head fell to just
below the shoulder-blades or even almost to the waist....Had it been standing,
its arms would have reached to a little above its knees; they were therefore
long, but its legs seemed to me rather short. I did not see its feet, but I did
see some toes which were shaped in a very normal manner. ... There was nothing
repulsive or ugly about its face, nor was it at all apelike" (Sanderson 1961 ,
pp. 222-223). After observing it for a while, Van Heerwarden allowed the
creature to run away.

A 1947 sighting by a French colonist refers to the animal as
a L'Homme Sauvage (wild man).

Dr. John Mackinnon claimed to have first observed tracks in
1970 that led him to believe that a hominid similar to the Meganthropus lived
there. In his 1975 book In Search Of The Red Ape he described
his experiences and findings. During an expedition to the Malaysian state of
Sabah the British zoologist
found several short, broad, human like footprints. “I stopped
dead,” MacKinnon writes in his book ,“My skin crept and I felt a
strong desire to head home” “farther ahead I saw tracks and went to examine
them….I found two dozen footprints in all.” Mackinnon would later report that he
was very happy to leave the scene of these footprints stating, “I was uneasy
when I found them, and I didn’t want to follow them and find out what was at the
end of the trail. I knew that no animal we know about could make those tracks.
Without deliberately avoiding the area I realize I never went back to that place
in the following months of my studies.”( He would later become
renowned for his discovery of new mammals in Vietnam during the
1990’s).

During the Vietnam War, a group of soldiers reported seeing a
5 foot tall creature, covered in reddish fur, which they called a Rock Ape. This
account was reported and retold in the 2001 book Very Crazy GI – Strange but
True Stories of the Vietnam War, written by veteran P.J. Jorgenson.

In 1982, Tran Hong Viet of Pedagogic University of Hanoi reported that he
had found similar footprints to those that MacKinnon discovered near Chu Mo Ray
in the Sa Thay District while making an extensive post war inventory of
natural resources. While collecting near Chu Mo Ray in Sa Thay District, he came
across the prints. A photo of the cast of the print was later published by
Fortean News of the World (Japan Fortean Information Society).(see
photo left)

So an ape or a man? Some say it is a rare ape others a
Neanderthal who still lives in remote areas. Most apes walking on two
legs walk awkwardly so it could be an explanation but most of the people who saw
the creature would be capable of recognising a local ape ,so the mystery
remains.

In
1982 Professor Tran Hong Viet, now at the Pedagogic University of
Hanoi,found and made a cast of a footprint measuring 28 by 16 centimeters. [11 inches by 6]

The footprint is as long as that of many people but it is much wider. It is
saidthat the toes of this footprint were much longer than those of a human.
Thefootprint was found on the slopes of Chu Mo Ray (Mom Ray mountain) in the
centreof the above picture. Chu Mo Ray is near the Cambodian Border in Sa
ThayDistrict of Kontum Province.

Professor Viet only recently
returned to his research on this subject, throughthe instigation of Japanese
Television which aired a show on the wildmanquestion in March, 1996. Fortean
News of the World (Japan Fortean InformationSociety) recently published an
image of this footprint, shown during a recentconference in
Hanoi.

Professor Viet and some other Vietnamese scientists believe that
this region,the so called 'three borders' region where the borders of
Vietnam, Cambodia andLaos converge, is the centre of reports of the
Vietnamese 'wildman'. So commonwere reports that in 1974, during the height
of war, General Hoang Minh Thaocommander of Northern forces in the Central
Highlands, requested a scientificsurvey of the region north of Kontum for
'Nguoi Rung'. Scientists who were partof this dangerous expedition included
Professors Vo Quy and Le Vu Khoi fromHanoi University and Professor Hoang
Xuan Chinh from the Institute ofArchaeology in Hanoi. No Nguoi Rung were
found - though the expedition returnedNorth with a couple new elephants for
the circus.

Reports of 'wildman' vary from large to small, with body hair
from grey to brownor black and may be alone or with others. But always they
are said to walkbipedally. They go by many names among highlands minority
people, most are termsof respect. The Vietnamese name is Nguoi Rung -
"Forest People". This is thedirect equivalent of the name for an ape we do
know from Indonesia, the OrangUtan. The minority people of Kontum are
certain that the forest people existedin their forests in the very recent
past. They differentiate their forest peoplefrom forest spirits or genies,
some of which they also describe as hairy bipeds.Mr Vu Ngoc Thanh visiting
areas near the Laotian border, discovered anotherlocal term 'Khi Trau,
literally 'buffalo monkey' or 'big monkey'.

Anthropologist, Professor
Dang Nghiem Van, Director of Hanoi's Institute forReligious Studies, has
collected many stories of Nguoi Rung from northernVietnam to the central
highlands. These include myths of small but very strongbeings knowing the
use of fire and eating forest molluscs. There are alsostories of a
different, much larger being.

Professor Van says that at night Nguoi Rung
come to places where people havefires. They sit beside men but do not speak,
or speak unintelligable words.There are stories of couples of Nguoi Rung
moving rapidly, easily climbingtrees, shaking trees for insects, sleeping in
grottos on mountain slopes.Professor Van's detailed notes, some of them from
locations in near Sa Thay,have yet to be published.

But if Nguoi
Rung exist, are they really apes or hominids? Some scientists likeBernard
Heuvelmans, a well-known cryptozoologist, and Dr Helmut Loofs-Wissowa ofthe
Australian National University, think that at least some forms may
beremnants of an early human population.

The figure to the right is
from Bernard Heuvelmans' 1969 description of acontroversial specimen called
the 'ice man', which he calledHomo pongoides. Thespecimen was examined in a
block of ice and has since disappeared. This has ledsome commentators to
disbelieve the comprehensive study Heuvelmans published in1974. Dr
Loofs-Wissowa suggests that few detractors have studied Heuvelmans'original
publications.

So there remain many questions. And so far no specimens
have been recovered.There have been several reports in the last 15 years in
the region of Kontum -Sa Thay alone. Those we recently began investigating
are shown on this satellitemap (160k).

But perhaps these questions go
well-beyond the veracity of the 'Minnesota iceman' to the nature of
scientific research. Some scientists are reticent even toconsider the
possibility of the existence of an undiscovered hominoid. It is
anuncomfortable subject for us, since we lack incontrovertable evidence. We
couldbe seen to have fallen in with the unscrupulous and
gullible.

Zoologist John Mackinnon (in McNeely and Sochaezowski, 1995)
once describedfinding short, broad, human-like but definitely non-human
footprints of acreature locals call the batutut in the forests of Sabah.
MacKinnon recountsseeing these footprints. "I was uneasy when I found them,
and I didn't want tofollow them and find out what was at the end of the
trail. I knew that no animalwe know about could make those tracks. Without
deliberately avoiding the area Irealize I never went back to that place in
the following months of my studies."

Perhaps we are limited in the end by
our own 'scientific mythologies'. Mackinnonwent on to head expeditions into
Vu Quang forest reserve in central Vietnam. Heand his colleagues found two
new species: a goat like animal, dubbed the saolafrom its long
spindle-shaped horns and a robust muntjac deer. In early 1997, anew, small
muntjac species was discovered in the forests of Quang Tri province,an
region which suffered heavy bombing during the uears of war. These are
thefirst new large mammals discovered by science since early this century.
Learnedopinion was that no new mammals could possibly have avoided detection
so long.Yet, learned opinion was wrong. Science is about keeping an open
mind, not aboutfitting the world into one's scientific or fantastic
preconceptions.

Additional Note 1:It
is a notable fact that several of the tracks attributed to these Nguoi
Rungor Da Nhan correspond in description to Yeh-Teh or "Abominable Snowman"
tracks.Odette Tcherne speaks of the Russian Hominologists being aware of
this fact inher book In Pursuit of the Abominable Snowman, and I have had
the descriptiongiven to me directly from some Vietnamese guys that I used to
supervise at the IUPUIlibrary as well. Best Wishes, Dale D.

Additional note 2:

Incidentally I have been in contact with Tran Hong
Viet recently and we discussed the track mentioned here [Tabitca's article, pictured] in particular. Critics
say it is only the print of an ordinary human foot: I do think there is a direct
connection between the Vietnamese version and the Batut or Sedapa and I told him
that. Best Wishes, Dale D.

"Orang Pendek" track cast, Ape-type

2012 "Eastern Bigfoot" track in mud, seems to show an opposed big toe, photo on the left. Photo on the Right shows "Swamp Creature" track from Arizona shows what looks like toes on its heels, a trait sometimes ascribed to the himalayan Yeti. This can happen when a knuckle-walking great ape leaves a composite print of both the forefeet and hindfeet togeter, and this type of track is also reported in Missouri and Florida "NAPES"these track photos come from JC Johnson.

Here is a useful psteup I just made for comparison: at the far left is a depiction of a Yeti (Mighu or "Wildman")from a recent Tibetan map I have reprinted before. Note that the feet look nothing like the Shipton "Yeti" tracks but instead look more like es type of tracknin Yeti track photo beside it also shows roughly the same sort of foot. The Tibetans "In the know" say that "Yeti" could mean a bear, but when Tibetans speak of "Wildmen" they mean something more definitely apelike, which comes in two forms: a big one like a gorilla and a smaller one like a chimpanzee. THe smaller one like a chimpanzee is the one that is shown here and is the one which Sanderson had said was comparable to the Orang Pendek. to the right is the outline of a foot from a very chimpanzeelike creature shown on a Japanese netsuke and illustrated on this blog before: note that the feet are once again ovoid overall and NOT like a monkey's tracks, which would have a more pointed type od heel. The hair on the sides of the feet is long enough that the creature can be walking on some of the hair sometimes, or at least that is what the artist seems to imply. And once again the same sort of Orang Pendek like track is indicated in Vietnam by the Destination Truth article. In which case it is all right to use the term Batutut or Orang Pendek IF you mention that neither term is native to the area AND you make a definite distinction between the creatures which leave humanlike tracks and the creatures which leave the apelike tracks. And it does seem that the more apelike NAPES or Skunk Apes tracks from North America are very similar to these same types of tracks again.

Wildmen of Malayasia and Indonesia

In 1969, John McKinnon, who journeyed to Borneo to observe orangutans, came across some humanlike footprints. McKinnon asked his Malay boatman what made them. "Without a moment’ a hesitation he replied ‘Batutut,’" wrote McKinnon, "but when I asked him to describe the beast he said it was not an animal but a type of ghost. … Batutut, he told me, is about four feet tall, walks upright like a man and has a long black mane. … Like other spirits of the forest the creature is very shy of light and fire" (Green 1978, p. 134).

Later, in Malaya[Kalimantan, Malaya on the Island of Borneo], McKinnon saw some casts of footprints even bigger than those he had seen in Borneo, but he recognized them as definitely having been made by the same kind of creature. The Malayans called it Orang pendek (short fellow). McKinnon stated: "Again natives spoke of a creature with long hair, who walks upright like a man. Drawings and even photographs of similar footprints found in Sumatra are attributed to the Sedapa or Umang, a small, shy, longhaired, bipedal being living deep in the forest" (Green 1978, pp. 134-135). According to Ivan Sanderson, these footprints differ from those of the anthropoid apes inhabiting the Indonesian forests (the gibbon, siamang, and orangutan). They are also distinct from those of the sun bear (Sanderson 1961, p. 219).

And then here is the descrption as given in George Eberharts' Mysterious Creatures:

BatûtûtSmall Hominidof Southeast Asia.Etymology: Unknown.Variant name: Ujit.Physical description: Height, 4 feet.Behavior: Nocturnal. Bipedal. Feeds on riversnails and breaks open their shells with a rock.Said to kill people and rip out their livers. Waryof fire.Distribution: Sabah State, Malaysia, in thenorth of the island of Borneo, Kalimantan.Tracks: Length, 6 inches. Width, 4 inches.Toes and heel are humanlike, but sole is tooshort and broad for a man. Big toe is on the op-posite side of the arch of the foot.[uncertain]Significant sighting: British zoologist JohnMacKinnon found two dozen footprints in theUlu Segama National Park, Sabah, in 1969.Possible explanation: Niah Cave in Sarawak,northern Borneo, has yielded archaic human re-mains. The cranium of a young, adult femalefound in 1958 is known as “Deep Skull” andmay be 40,000 years old, which may representthe earliest anatomically modern remains in In-donesia.[It is a Pygmy type of skull-DD]Sources: Frederick Boyle, The Savage Life(London: Chapman and Hall, 1876), p. 36;John MacKinnon, In Search of the Red Ape(New York: Ballantine, 1974), pp. 100–102.

There is an ongoing problem in thart practically all researchers continue to conflate a humanlike creature with a nonopposed big toe and an ape with an an opposed big toe throughout the area, and the researchers are not only not careful to make the distinction, they casually use names that are current in one area and apply them indiscriminately in another region where the names are not currently used. In this case the Batutut and Orang Pendek are evidently the same as the Da Nhan (not Nguoi Rung) of Vietnam, and the track indicated by Destination Truth is of the right type for that. A large male of the type is the size of a man of moderate height and has a footprint about a foot long:but smaller ones are commonly seen at down to 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall. These are probably younger ones. At the same time there is a general confusion with a Neanderthaloid type (More properly the Nguoi Rung) which is also called Orang Pendek (and by synonymous names) over much the same area. NONE of the internet references I have seen make this comment or distinction (Quite a few say "Batutut Borneo" as if that were the proper name, which is a mere filing error)

The Gibbon's Voice (Newsletter) of December 2001 (Vol 5 No 1), contains the article "Observations of Previously Undocumented Gibbons and
Orangutans in the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary"
By Marc Ancrenaz, DVM, and this article mentions on p3
" A very special gibbon has been observed several times at
the KOCP study site. The general color of this individual is
brown, like many other gibbons. But this special individual
is about twice the size of the normal gibbon. Indeed, its size
approximates that of an adult female orangutan. Once, this
individual was accompanied by a grey adult gibbon who was
about half of the size of the giant! There is no tale of the
gigantic gibbon in the local traditions, and no scientific
record of such a large gibbon has been found in the litera-
ture so far. Thus, we hypothesize that this variation is an
individual abnormality. However local tales frequently refer
to a creature called Batutut. The Batutut is described as a
large, black, hairy bipedal creature, walking upright on the
ground and unable to climb up trees (or climbs with great
difficulty). This creature is very aggressive, and many
stories tell how people wandering in the forest are attacked
by the Batutut. These observations are especially frequent
close to the villages and the orchards where it comes to eat
people’s fruits and vegetables. Some local people think that
the Batutut could be a very old male orangutan, unable to
climb up trees because of his disabilities. This would
explain the dark color of the animal, the fact that it is seen
walking on the ground close to the villages, and that it is
not afraid of people. However, for some other local people,
the Batutut would be some other very secretive creature still
unknown to science and surviving in the deeps of the
Bornean jungle. Who knows?
"

During the time I was posting the selected articles reprinted above at my Yahoo Cryptozoology group originally, I felt the necessity to add this explanation:

What I said was that my understanding of the Orang
Pendek was based on Heuvelman's chapter in On the
Track of Unknown Animals, and that description
corresponded to certain Almas descriptions: I
mentioned when talking about reports from the Altai
mountains that some of the reports matched the Orang
Pendek (in particular the Van Hervaarden description,
which I suppose to be the "Classic" description)
And that the smaller type of Tibetan Yeti is geographically
intermediate between the two others

Some of these more recent "Orang Pendek" tracks and sightings
are NOT
talking about that: when there are reports of a small
chimplike ape with a divergent big toe and a footprint structured
approximately like an Orangutan's, THAT would not be
the SAME Orang pendek: you have a situation where different
things are all called "Yeti". That part always puzzled
me because whoever got off the main track in reporting
these things apparently does not know what the term
originally meant. I do not know if the confusion is at
the local level, a confusion by certain natives as
opposed to certain other natives or what, but we
should be going by what the standard sources call the
Orang pendek. That would be what Heuvelman's checklist
defines as the type, apparently the same thing as what
was called the Nittaweo in Ceylon and more recently
Batutut in Borneo: what Ivan Sanderson defines as the
Proto-pygmy type.

My personal interpretation of the Proto-pygmy category
is ONLY that it represents the smaller form of Sanderson's
Subhuman category: and I had also mentioned that
Sanderson stated in PURSUIT his opinion that the Orang
Pendek was only the small form of the Proto-Malays (or
Bi'lan, on Heuvelmans' checklist). Which is actually
saying the same thing. In which case it would only be
the same thing as Homo troglodytes/Homo pongiodes,
Almas, Chinese Wildman and the smaller form
of the Iceman: all of these things would be synonyms.

The small Orangutan-type ape is not that type of Orang Pendek
but another type of "Orang Pendek" entirely. "Orang" in its
basic meaning is
nothing so specific, it means "person", but
people who
do not understand the language might use "Orang" to
mean "Orang pendek" or "Orangutan", as specificterms.

Which is unfortunate because it caused a
misunderstanding which need not have arisen.
Best Wishes, Dale D.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:19pm PDT

A monster white sturgeon weighing an estimated 1,100 pounds and measuring 12 feet, 4 inches was caught and released on the Fraser River, a British Columbia waterway famous for its big sturgeon...just not this big.

Catches of white sturgeon averaging 30 to 100 pounds are typical on the Fraser, even an occasional 250-pounder, but nothing as massive as this sturgeon, believed to be the biggest freshwater fish ever caught on rod and reel in North America...and possibly the oldest.

"I've been a professional guide on the Fraser for 25 years and I've never seen a sturgeon this big," said Dean Werk, owner/guide of Great River Fishing Adventures.

"We have helped to collectively tag more than 47,000 white sturgeon since 1995, and scanned in excess of 90,000 tagged sturgeon that have been caught and released. This tells us this dinosaur fish hasn't been caught in at least 18 years if ever at all. I'd bet she's over 100 years old."

Think about that: Incredibly, this massive sturgeon, a prehistoric species, might have been hatched the year the Titanic sank.

It could also be 35 years older than the angler, Michael Snell, 65, of Salisbury, England. Snell, who was fishing with his wife, Margaret, called the catch a fish of a lifetime.

"It is the most excitement I've ever had with a fish," said Snell, who took 1 1/2 hours to eventually land the fish along the shoreline. "It all happened so quickly. When we picked her head up out of the water, it was almost three-feet wide. I never knew a fish could be that large."

By comparison, the world-record swordfish is 1,182 pounds. The world record for a white sturgeon? It is 468 pounds taken in Benicia, Calif., according to the 2012 International Game Fish Association book of World Record Game Fishes.

Since Great River Fishing Adventures, like many others on the river, are into conservation and preserving these incredible creatures, the fish was released alive, so weighing it was impossible.

The estimated weight was based on charts created by the Fraser River Conservation Society using girth and length measurements. A similar chart for marlin gave the same estimate.

Alas, this behemoth, with a girth of 53 inches, won't ever become an official world record since IGFA requires a record fish to be weighed on a certified scale.

Nevertheless, it'll be quite a memory for Snell. What did he and the wife do for an encore? They caught two more sturgeon, including a 100-pounder.

Werk (right) and his fellow guide couldn't resist posing with the biggest sturgeon they've ever seen. Photos courtesy of Great River Fishing Adventures.

I reprinted this because 1) Giant sturgeon are always a topic of interest here, so would giant catfish be, whether or not they are of a known species, and 2) the given size is not the record for this species of fish in North America, it is perhaps half of the record. But records of the largest fishes are frequently sbject to questioning and revising.

Thursday, 19 July 2012

I had sought permission by Igor Burtsev to reprint the material on Zana and he granted me permission some while back. Here is the source material in English from the Russian Hominology sitehttp://www.hominology.narod.ru/zanai.htm

Wild woman,
supposed relict hominoid, captured somewhere in a forest and having given birth
from a local man in Abkhazia in the eve of 19th sentury

By Igor
Burtsev, translated by Dmitri
Bayanov

In Abkhazia, Western
Caucasus, relict hominoids (snowmen) are called abnauyu. While collecting reports in 1962,
a colleague of Prof. Boris Porshnev,
zoologist Prof. Alexander Mashkovtsev, heard and studied the story of Zana.
Subsequently, Porshnev took over where his late companion left off. The
following information is borrowed from Porshnev's work The Struggle for Troglodytes*.

Zana was a female abnauyu who had been caught and tamed and who lived and died within the memory of a number of people still alive at the time of the research. She was buried near the village of Tkhina in the Ochamchiri District of Abkhazia in the 1880s or 1890s.

The manner of her capture is vague. Pro­bably she had already changed hands by sale when she became the property of the ruling prince D.M.Achba who was the titular head of the Zaadan region. She passed into the possession of one of his vassals, named Chelokua and still later she was presented to a nobleman, Edgi Genaba, who visited the region. He took her away, still shackled and chained, to his estate in the village of Tkhina on the Mokva River, 78 kilometres from Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia.
At first Genaba lodged her in a very strong enclosure and nobody ventured in to give her food, for she acted like a wild beast. It was thrown to her. She dug herself a hole in the ground and slept in it and for the first three years she lived in this wild state, gradually becoming tamer. After three years she was moved to a wattle-fence enclosure under an awning near the house, tethered at first, but later she was let loose to wander about. However she never went far from the place where she received her food. She could not endure warm rooms and the year round, in any weather, slept outdoors in a hole that she made herself under the awning.
Villagers teased her with sticks thrust through the wattle-fence, and she would snatch them with fury, bare her teeth and howl.

Her skin was black, or dark grey, and her whole body covered with reddish-black hair. The hair on her head was tousled and thick, hanging mane-like down her back.

She could not speak, over decades that she lived with people, Zana did not learn a single Abkhaz word; she only made inarticulate sounds and mutterings, and cries when irritated. But she reacted to her name, carried out commands given by her master and was scared when he shouted at her. And this despite the fact that she was very tall, massive and broad, with huge breasts and buttocks, muscular arms and legs, and fingers that were longer and thicker than human fingers. She could splay her toes widely and move apart the big toe.

From remembered descriptions given to Mashkovtsev and Porshnev, her face was terrifying; broad, with high cheekbones, flat nose, turned out nostrils, muzzle-like jaws, wide mouth with large teeth, low forehead, and eyes of a reddish tinge. But the most frightening feature was her expression which was purely animal, not human. Sometimes, she would give a spontaneous laugh, bar­ing those big white teeth of hers. The latter were so strong that she easily cracked the hardest walnuts.

She lived for many years without showing any change: no grey hair, no falling teeth, keeping strong and fit as ever. Her athletic power was enormous. She would outrun a horse, and swim across the wild Mokva River even when it rose in violent high tide. Seemingly without effort she lifted with one hand an eighty-kilo sack of flour and carried it uphill from the water-mill to the village. She climbed trees to get fruit, and to gorge herself with grapes she would pull down a whole vine growing around the tree. She ate whatever was offered to her, including hominy and meat, with bare hands and enormous gluttony. She loved wine, and was allowed her fill, after which she would sleep for hours in a swoon-like state.

She liked to lie in a cool pool side by side with buffalos. At night she used to roam the surrounding hills. She wielded big sticks against dogs and on other perilous occasions. She had a curious obsession for playing with stones, knocking one against another and splitting them.

She took swims the year round, and preferred to walk naked even in winter, tearing dresses that she was given into shreds. However, she showed more tolerance toward a loin-cloth. Sometimes she went into the house, but the women were afraid of her and came near only when she was in a gentle mood; when angry she presented a scary sight and could even bite. But she obeyed her master, Edgi Genaba, and he knew how to bring her to heel. Adults used her as a bogy figure with children, although Zana never actually attacked children.

She was trained to perform simple domestic tasks, such as grinding grain for flour, bringing home firewood and water, or sacks to and from the water-mill, or pull her master's high boots off.

Khwit

Raya

But she became the mother of human children, and this is the wonderous side of her life story, very important for the science of genetics. Zana was pregnant several times by various men, and, giving birth without assistance, she always washed the newborn child in the cold water-spring. The half-breed infants, unable to survive these ablutions, died.

So, when subsequently Zana gave birth, the villagers began taking the newborn babies away from her in good time, and reared them themselves. Four times this happened, and the children, two sons and two daughters, grew up as humans, fully-fledged and normal men and women who could talk and possessed reason. It is true that they had some strange physical and mental features, but nonetheless they were fully capable of engaging in work and social life.

One of her sons Khwit died in 1954. There were rumours that his father was in fact Edgi Genaba himself, but in the census he was put down under a family-name of Sabekia. It is significant that Zana was buried in the family cemetery of the Genabas, and that the two youngest children of Zana were brought up by Genaba's wife.

Khwit was powerfully built, had dark skin, but he inherited scarcely anything from Zana's facial appearance. The complex of human features, inherited from hisd father, was dominant in them and overruled the mother's line of descent. Khwit, who died at the age of 65 or 70, was described by his fellow-villagers as little different from the human norm, except for certain small divergences. He was extremely strong, difficult to deal with and quick to pick a fight. In fact, he lost his right hand after one of the many fights he had with his fellow-villagers, but his left hand sufficed him to mow and do other work on a collective farm, and even climb trees. When old, he moved to the town of Tkvarcheli where he eventually died, but he was taken back for burial at Tkhina.

The next stage of the Zana case was taken up by attempts to find her grave and skeleton. Here is what Prof. Boris Porshnev says about his efforts in that direction:

In September 1964, the archaeologist V.S.Orelkin and I made our first attempt to find Zana's grave. After was the second and third expeditions, but the search party had still not found Zana's bones (the last one was in October 1965)*.

* Archaeologist Yury Voronov, who later became Vice Premier of Abkhazia and was killed in September 1995, participated in the search at the time {IB.)

Igor Bourtsev on the excavation

After the passing of Porshnev it fell to my lot to continue the search. I headed three expeditions to Abkhazia in search of Zana's skeleton, in 1971, 1975 and 1978, which merits a separate story. Our difficulty was that by that time the last scion of the Genaba clan had passed away and nobody knew exactly where Zana's grave was. We put in a tremendous amount of spade work on that hillside, digging sticky clayey earth under almost daily downpours. During the second expe­dition I was taken seriously ill with an illness which doctors failed to identify. We never found a skeleton that would fit Zana's features as described by witnesses.

It was then decided to exhume the skull of Khwit, Zana's younger son, whose grave was still well indicated. The famous paleontologist professor Nikolay Bourchak-Abramovich assisted me in that digging in 1971, and a young anthropologist-archeologist Leonid Yablonsky consulted the digging in 1975.

I brought the skull to Moscow where it was studied by two physical anthropologists, M.A.Kolodieva and M.M.Gerasimova. The re­sults of the study were reported by me at the Relict Hominoid Research Seminar and the Moscow Naturalists' Society and published in 1987.**

The skulls of Khwit and a woman

** I.D. Bourtsev, M.A. Kolodieva. Results of a Preliminary Investigation of a Skull from the Village of Tkhina, Abkhaz ASSR. In: Papers of the Moscow Naturalists' Society. Moscow, 1987 (in Russian).

Anthropologist M.A.Kolodieva compared the skull of Khwit with the male skulls from Abkhazia in the collection of the Moscow State University Institute of Anthropology and found that Khwit's skull was significantly different. Indicating it as the Tkhina skull, she writes:

The Tkhina skull exhibits an original combination of modern and ancient features ... The facial section of the skull is significantly larger in comparison with the mean Abkhaz type ... All the measurements and indices of the superciliary cranial contour are greater not only than those of the mean Abkhaz series, but also than those of the maximum size of some fossil skulls studied (or rather were compara­ble with the latter). The Tkhina skull approaches closest the Neolithic Vovnigi II skulls of the fossil series...

The skeleton in the neighborly grave

On her part, anthropologist M.M.Gerasimova came to the following conclusions:

The skull discloses a great deal of peculiarity, a certain disharmony, disequilibrium in its features, very large dimensions of the facial skeleton, increased development of the contour of the skull, the specificity of the non-metric features (the two foramina mentale in the lower jaw, the intrusive bones in the sagittal suture, and the Inca bone). The skull merits further extended study.

So the bottom line of the Zana case today is this: we have only descriptions of Zana's peculiar nature, but the hard and specific evidence of her son's skull goes a long way in making the testimony of witnesses more solid and trustworthy.

It is need to add, that neighborly to the Khwit’s grave there was an interesting finding of the remnants: the skeleton of a woman buried in unusual position: on the side and with legs bent. Her skull is more robust comparing the local women and very prognathic. I don’t exclude that this burial belongs to Zana herself. To define this conclusion it is necessary to fulfill the comparative DNA analysis of both the sculls.

From Igor Bourtsev: "Me in Tajikistan, 1979. One of the footprints found, casted" This is incidentally a classic footprint of the Almas type and can be matched by photos of similar casts from the Caucasus, Pamirs, Tien Shans, Mongolia and Tibet

-I consider that the woman's remains found with Kvit are possibly a relative but probably not Zana's.
I did find that Kvit's skull shows features which in a fossil example would definitely classify it as a Neanderthal crossbreed. The Skull is very much like the well-preserved Classic Neanderthal from La Ferassie:

Zana's Daughter or Granddaughter Natalia and Khvit's son Shaliqua, killed in the 1950s. Khvit lived to be an old man in his seventies before he died and was buried: Igor has many photos of their relatives and descendants, who continue to flourish in the area up to the present day.

Igor's daughter drew a portrait of him interviewing one of the specific North American Bigfoots that had been reportedly "Acclimatized" to regular feedings. I had already said that her artwork depicting this individyual showed a Neanderthal-type cranium and so I superimposed one of the Spanish early-Neanderthal ("?H. heidelbergensis") skulls for comparison and showed it to him:

Incident on the Carter Farm illustrated by Lilia Bourtsev

This was the illustration I saw first and I remarked that the Bigfoot in question had a Neanderthal shaped skull. The woman in the picture is secretly snatching some hairs from the creature's arm: I had some of the hairs as samples myself through an intermediary, and Igor through another route: both of us sent our samples in to be analysed. The samples I sent in were unfortunately discarded at the other end but the ones Igor had analysed matched against Kvit's remains genetically. Which was a remarkable and highly significant finding.

I later sent in some reconstructions based on ones at the "Them and Us" site to show how the theory would account for hairy Neanderthals resembling the Bigfoots or what Igor preferred to call "Forest People" (Some of the critics complained about the reconstructions all having the same fixed snarling expression)

And in this last one I had the "Them or Us" models (With legs repositioned more naturally under the body) scaled to show a more typical Neanderthal (on the Left) or a really big Heidelberger (With the eyes emphasized as in many reports) as compared to an average adult man.

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Message sent to me from Andrea Machler:
Hey Dale,
I just stubeled upon a conversation in one of the grpoups I'm in. They brought up the topic of Trolls in Skandinavia after someone found the article about the troll footprint on Bigfoot Evidence. I thought you might be interested in a snippet of this conversation.

Recent Trolltrack, also seen on Bigfoot Evidence

Here's what one of the members wrote:
"I went to school with a known Dj in Sweden , we hung out a lot and his mom showed me a photo her grandfather took over the local lake during the winter , it was a genuine photo that was kept in her family album along with portrait photos etc and you could clearly see one walking over the frozen ice on the lake , taken on a clear day but in black n white. No photoshop back then . Sounds like crazy shit but it did have an effect on me as to keep an open mind . I dont take everything seriously but I do accept that anything is possible. Life itself is a wonderful miracle and there are plenty of weird little things out there we can't even grasp ."

He was the asked: "That's awesome Erik! Did it look like the "standard" North-american bigfoot? Or more like "The Abominable Snowman" you think? Would be interesting to know."

And answered: "You would be surprised to hear it looked like the dude in your post up there , that cartoonist is pretty damn close . I know the lake well like the back of my hand and all the forest surrounding it for miles , to judge the size I would give a rough estimate of two meters tall but tricky enough as it was hunched over when walking , the only thing that makes me think they are not big foots is the other two mates that swore their troll was a large rock/boulder that turned into a troll and stood up and walked off away from where they were . The guys mentioned in both stories are people a trust my life with ."

As to the creature looking like a rock or a tree stump before it moved, that occurs in North American Bigfoot stories. Apparantly the creatures can sit very still indeed in hops of escaping notice and with their backs turned sitting down, they do not immediately look like living humanoid creatures.

Another Troll image is provided on the cover of the book:

and this is pretty much a representation of a "Wild Man" costume as worn in festivals throughout Europe, the whole body garbed in a coverall sort of garment that represents a close over-all coat of hair.Trolls are also traditionally barefoot but not necessarily so.

There are Scandinavian travel sites which helpfully provide traditional images of Troll tracks, basically of the same outline expected for large Neanderthal tracks. The ones at top are scaled for a 7 1/2 foot tall Troll and a more normal human sized "Wood Nymph" with basically the ordinary type of human foot. http://varmlandofscandinavia.com/about-contact/
Troll tracks are also traditionally printed around town in chalk during festivals and one of the representations in chalk is shown below the ordinary track outlines (This has only three toes but preserves the very broad and square outline of the tracks)http://www.decorahnews.com/opinion/stories/97.html
I have seen enough of these that I think it can be said these are not unusual or atypical representations-the idea is that Troll Tracks really are supposed to look that big and squared off (One site used a typical Bigfoot footprint cast from Texas to illustrate the Troll Tracks)http://kryptoeng.blogspot.com/2010/07/yeti-bigfoot-and-swedish-trolls.html
The same sort of tracks are also associated with the usual European "Wildman" representations and so there is likely continuity through that tradition also.Ultimately the traditonal tracks seem to come by way of tracks represented by being pecked into stone surfaces as ancient rock art. (Compare Troll footprint design charm bead as pictured below in a copied form according to the originating site)

Some pertinent Wildman images for Reference:

Left, Traditional Wildman,often associated with Scandinavian countries including on churches. My photosearch turned up a similar modern statue situated in Lappland (Northern Sweden part) At right, representation of Wildman probably based on performance costume, showing onepiece coverall pattern leaving hands and feet uncovered. Some depictions of Trolls seem to show this sort of conventionalisation and it is understood generally throughout Europe as implying the actual thing through its theatrical re-enactment. Below are a couple of illustrations for Skogsras, the term itself means both the male and the female but more usually it is taken to mean the shortened form for the female-only (Skogsfru) and they are to be understood as something like the Classical Satyrs. They could be wearing animal furs with the tails still attached as many people were known to do historically in other places (Including the Egyptians) Frequently they are also shown with twigs, sticks and leaves entangled in their hair and especially the long hair that hangs down their back.

A Conversation With Justin Smeja: I Killed Bigfoot [Free Documentary]

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Last June, it was
reported that a bear hunter in Northern California shot and killed two Bigfoots.
One Bigfoot he shot was an adult and the other one was a juvenile that died in
the his arms after being shot. According to the story, the hunter said the
Bigfoots appeared sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four legs. They got
aggressive with him and moved very close to him. At one point, one got on a
ledge above him and seemed to be threatening him. He shot it out of fear it was
going to attack him.For a period of time no one knew if
the story was true, but then Derek Randles of the Olympic Project released an
official statement correcting some of the "misinformation"
circulating the Bigfoot community. That official statement from Randles set the
stage for what is now called the "Sierra Kills".

Justin Smeja, a hunter
from Sacramento, CA was out bear hunting near Gold Lake with his friend (the
driver) back in October 2010. This is his story:

For what it's worth, the text accompanying this entry (he shot in self-defense, they ran on all fours) is incorrect. IF this actually happened, he clearly states he shot from a distance at a non-hostile target. The "creature" ran on all fours because it had been wounded.

Smeja is nothing but a poacher and an opportunistic pot grower in an economically depressed part of California. He has nothing to lose, in terms of a good reputation in his community, so there's no impetus for him to not tell bullshit tales like this one.

He's a redneck bullshitter who eventually told a story that pushed the same kind of emotional buttons that the Georgia hoaxers pushed. He saw how his bullshit story attracted some attention, and brought him some money, so he kept pushing that button and he kept refining his story.

Thanks for the interview and asking great questions. I am on the fence with whether he is telling the truth or him lying to make money. Polygraph and DNA results will tip the scales. My only question is what of the other guy who was with Justin? Where is he? And what is his side of the story?

--As to the last question the other fella has been interviewed and has made a statement. It has been printed on this blog in an earlier entry. And as to the DNA results, I have been in not exactly close but friendly communication with Melba Ketcham and her secretary Sally Ramey almost the whole time this incident has been in the news and both the samples and the DNA results arising from it are all too real.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

String of Messages from the Facebook Group Ohio Bigfoot Hunters:
Tim Stover TcsjrBigfoot
Has it occurred to anybody that Justin Smeja is a cold blooded killer? I've been a hunter all my life and I know what kind a person it would take to kill something that's not on the menu. Just my thought.
Tim Mitchell, Pat Camp, Larry Wentz and 7 others like this..

Dale Drinnon Believe me, we've been discussing that aspect of the case for months now. The last time I posted on the matter, I got postings on my timeline saying so
6 hours ago · Like.

Billy Elder from day one
6 hours ago · Like.

Tim Stover TcsjrBigfoot Ya it's sad. If true than I can't imagine what was going thru that Bigfoots mind when the gun was aimed at it.
6 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1.

Billy Elder i am listening to joe rogan talk with BoBo about this and it sucks
6 hours ago · Like · 1.

Kevin Foley Not sure whether or not this joker killed anything worth talking about?...Does any one realy have any proof of this incedent? Tim, you are a known BF researcher..."do you believe this incedentr really happened"? I think he killed a local animal....not anytrhing else....Give me proof!
6 hours ago · Like · 2.

Tim Stover TcsjrBigfoot Kevin I will never believe until I see the body. DNA will not satisfy me either. I know they exist and if this clown is telling the truth than I consider it murder.
6 hours ago via mobile · Like · 3.

Kevin Foley BTW, we have listened to this "made up" story for over a year now...and not ONE solid piece of evidence has been issued regarding the so called (2) kill BF in Northern california. Can we move on and declare the so called Smeja "murder" declared as a false incident"! In other words BULLSHIT story!
6 hours ago · Like · 1.

Dan Baker Tim, for the record,if he did indeed kill two Sasquatches and they are hominids, then in my opinion it was nothing less than 1st degree murder. We Do however, need the proof which eludes all of us at this time.
5 hours ago · Like · 1.

Dan Baker I will never be pro-kill when it comrs to bigfoot.
5 hours ago · Like · 1.

Dan Baker I mean comes.
5 hours ago · Like · 1.

Dale Drinnon
Another thing to add to that-preliminary DNA tests on the samples provided say they ARE human. So going by that much, no doubt, he is 100% guilt of first-defgree murder. AND he is guilty of first degree murder NO MATTER WHAT HIS STORY IS, when he provides that as a sample of whatever it was he had killed. I point out frequenntly he could "Only" have killed an ordinary woman with excessively aboundant pubic hair and just cut a swatch out of her hairiest part. DEFINITELY murder in that case, and pretty sick one at that.
5 hours ago · Like · 4.

Keith Miller I thought that my self.
5 hours ago · Like · 1.

Fox Flinginpoopen that has been my opinion all along tim
5 hours ago · Like · 1.

Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop
‎Tim Stover TcsjrBigfoot, I don't think he killed any Bigfoot. if you watched Ro's interview it appears very clear to me. You were a hunter so you know that you never shoot what you can't identify. in one part of the interview he claims that he shot the juvenile and then his buddy came down the hill . So he wants us to believe he shot the kid when he didn't know his buddy's location. NO hunter I know of would ever pull the trigger without being certain of their friends location. Smeja was a very experianced hunter, I heard that he was even a bear hunting guide. His story just don't stand up in my opinion.
5 hours ago · Like · 3.

Keith Miller ‎Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop: I know what you mean I have passed up shots on deer because I wasn't sure if it had horns or not. A true hunter wont shoot anything he can't identify.
4 hours ago · Like · 1.

Fox Flinginpoopen he sounds like a jerk that would shoot anything that moves, has no respect for life at all. if i shot a bigfoot, even if it was tryna kill my little ass, i would still feel guilty for the rest of my life
4 hours ago · Like · 2.

Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop
‎Keith Miller, exactly! I don't hunt but know many hunters, all of them have told me that the wont shoot unless they are certain. They even count the points on the deer to make sure it's legal. There are some bad hunters out there but even they wont shoot unless they know what they are shooting. If your buddy is screaming don't shoot because it might be a guy in a suit you sure as hell aint gonna shoot, if you do you deserve a special place in hell. Tim Stover TcsjrBigfoot, can tell you better than any one what goes through your mind when in a circumstance like this, he didn't shoot. Many hunters say they couldn't shoot even if they wanted too because it looked too human. Smeja is either a liar or one of the most dispicable human beings around. My opinion.
4 hours ago · Like · 1.

Ed Wiland This guy is a blooming idiot. Had this been in Georgia where I was an ACO, I would have kept him on the radar. I would have been hot on his heals................ What a putz!!!!!!!!!!!
3 hours ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell i want to talk to his friend who was with him and killed people in combat and knows what is a threat and what isnt.
2 hours ago · Like.

Fox Flinginpoopen well from wut he said his friend was saying, it didnt look like a threat to him. he was saying dont shoot
2 hours ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell exactly that is why i would want to talk to him. he knew it wasnt a threat and had no need to be shot
2 hours ago · Like.

Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop ‎Tim Mitchell, The adult was alegedly shot from the truck so no real threat there, as far as the juvenile he didn't really say why he felt threatened. I am currently reading the entire thread on the taxidermy forum that Smeja originaly posted to, it is 57 pages and I am on page 23.
32 minutes ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell well let me know when you are done with it. i dont know if you caught joe rogans podcast with bobo last night but they talked about it in the beginning
30 minutes ago · Like.

Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop Yep, I listened to it today. Bobo dissapoints me with his support of Smeja and Ketchum, other than that it was good.
24 minutes ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell i was kinda surprised that he was out with meldrum looking for the bodies. still i want to find his friend and talk to him. he is the missing link to the story since they have no body
21 minutes ago · Like.

Steve Alcorn SasquatchScoop Funny, Smeja never posted in that original thread that he killed a Bigfoot, he described it as a funny looking bear, then no mention of a juvenile until another person brought it up a couple weeks later. Apparently he spoke to another guy on the phone and told him the story, a couple weeks later the guy posted what Smeja told him. Smeja posted that he wished the guy would not have done that.
19 minutes ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell hmm for all we know maybe they just paid his dumbass to take the rap for what someone else might have did and that's why he couldnt find the bodies. one more question how the hell did he find the steak and no bone attached to it?
17 minutes ago · Like.

Tim Mitchell i was told i could talk to justin myself and i might just take that person up on it just to hear it for myself and ask the questions i want to ask. not that ro did a bad job. it just left me with a lot of other questions
15 minutes ago · Like.

XXXXXXXXXXXX I am just going to attempt to message him and see what I get. here is the link to the taxidermy forum, you have to register to read it. Night folks. http://www.taxidermy.net/​forum/index.php/​topic,238666.0.html
www.taxidermy.net
Taxidermy Net Forum interactive bulletin board for the taxidermy industry, with over 10,000 unique visitors each day..
11 minutes ago · Like.

I cut the string at the point where more sensitive information was being posted.

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